Within two weeks, space on a direct mail business card sold by a daily paper in New York was sold out and advertisers were lining up to be part of the next one. Learn what made this a highly successful revenue program.

Second-place honors in SNPA's Best Revenue Contest go to The Times-Dispatch in Richmond for its cause-marketing sections, which are generating goodwill in the community and added revenue for the paper.

The success of the paper's program is largely due to the relationships the staff has built with decision-makers at organizations throughout the community.

In 2014 The Charlotte Observer started what could be described as an extended brew pub crawl by selling cards that offered customers tastings at between 15 and 18 local breweries across the city. Phyllis Weber, who recently left Charlotte to become advertising director at The Roanoke Times in Virginia, recalls how well the promotion worked.

"This one totally surprised us," she said. The paper made $13,000 in incremental digital revenue, selling about 650 cards at $20 apiece.

As the holiday sales season comes down to the wire, here's a quick way to generate a little more revenue, make readers smile and sell some more papers.

The Bay City Tribune in Texas, which circulates about 4,000 papers twice weekly, filled up two full pages at Halloween with photos of kids in costume, got a major business to sponsor the promotion and made $500. There's no reason the same plan can't work with Santa Claus.